For example, its unlimited data plan is $60, which is about as much as other the major providers charge. But it doesn’t come with any great perks, and your data speeds will be throttled. No thanks. H2O’s $20 talk and text plan will be great for those that just need a phone to coordinate rides and catch up with family—perhaps your kids or your parents. You’ll even get 500 MB of full-speed data and unlimited data at 2G speeds (which is really slow). But H2O Wireless also has plenty of high-speed data plans that will appeal to those who want to post, stream, and game on their phone. (If you’re not sure exactly how much data you want, use our handy guide to figure it out.) The bad news is that AT&T can prioritize its own users over H2O’s users (we’ll talk about this more below). But the good news is that H2O customers will be on one of the fastest and most wide-reaching cellular networks available. There are a few other MVNOs that also use AT&T’s network like Cricket Wireless and Pure TalkUSA that offer a ton of cheap cell phone plans as well. All of H2O’s monthly plans include unlimited international talk and text to over 50 countries, like Japan, Chile, and Russia. You can check the full list of countries and read about H2O’s international calling policies on the company’s website. There are some strange limitations to these international calls: you can call only landlines in many locations, and calls are disconnected after one hour. If you’re looking for a prepaid company with more robust international benefits, we suggest Ultra Mobile. H2O’s relatively high prices (for an MVNO), throttled data, and lack of perks will drive many customers away. Yes, a $20 unlimited talk and text plan is a pretty good deal (though it’s not as good as Twigby’s). But when you start to add data to H2O’s plans, its prices skyrocket and even get higher than AT&T’s. To put that into perspective: the latest Opensignal report says that AT&T’s network is averaging download speeds of 29.1 Mbps. That’s 363% faster than the maximum speeds that H2O customers will receive!1 Sorry gamers, streamers, and influencers, you might want to find another provider. For instance, three lines with 12 GB of data split between them (so just 4 GB each) will run you $30 per line, per month. So, weirdly, getting three separate lines with 5 GB of data each would cost you the same price, and you’d get more data. Like pretty much everything around H2O’s pricing, this has us scratching our heads . . . That might be fine if you just want phones for your middle-schoolers. But many people—those of us who are constantly streaming, posting, and reading the news on our phones—5 GB won’t really cut it. Even if you are satisfied with less data, H2O’s prices for that data are quite high. That means you’ll see download speeds of 8 Mbps, at most. That’s enough to stream standard definition content, but it’s a lot less than the roughly 30 Mbps speeds that other folks on the AT&T network will get. There’s no other way to put this: H2O’s family plan is kind of a rotten deal. Basically, instead of paying for a certain amount of minutes or data each month, you just put a certain dollar amount on your account and then—you guessed it—pay as you go. Here’s a look at the rates and recharge amounts you can choose from. But the real costs are going to add up when you use data. At ten cents a megabyte you’ll be paying about $100 for a single gigabyte of data! To put that into perspective, it would cost you about $302 to stream Avengers: Infinity War—and that’s in standard definition! Yikes. AT&T’s network can’t quite match Verizon’s when it comes to overall coverage, but it comes really close.1 H2O customers should experience full bars in most metropolitan and suburban areas, and you can expect at least some service in most rural communities as well. Unfortunately, H2O customers won’t benefit from AT&T’s incredibly fast download speeds, which average at about 30 Mbps. That’s because AT&T caps all H2O Wireless customers at just 8 Mbps max—so you might notice some lag in your PUBG Mobile game. H2O lists several of Samsung’s new devices on its website. But when we clicked on the first one displayed, the Galaxy S10+, we saw this: At least you can pick up an iPhone 11 from H2O, right? No. Wrong. The company doesn’t sell any Apple devices at all. Double bummer. (You can bring your own Apple device.) Here are some of the phones that H2O does sell, listed in order of popularity. That said, we were able to get through to an H2O customer service agent after being on hold for just 30 seconds (nice horns section in that hold music, H2O!). Once we were connected, the agent was kind and helpful. You can also set up H2O Wireless refills and change your account settings using the MyH2O app, but be aware that it’s prone to glitches. The MyH2O app has earned just a sliver above 3 stars in the Google Play Store2 and a piddling 2.2 stars in the Apple Store.3 Here’s a short recap of H2O’s plans and network performance for the TL;DR crowd.
Plans: There are plenty of options, including unlimited talk and text plans, unlimited data plans, and pay as you go plans. H2O charges a lot for full-speed data, so data hogs might want to look elsewhere for service. Family plans: You can save a few bucks per line when you bundle together with a family plan, but H2O still ends up being more expensive than many other MVNOs. Network performance: AT&T provides H2O customers with good coverage across North America. But it does throttle their data speeds to a maximum of 8 Mbps.
If you’re looking for a cheap way to get on AT&T’s network, then consider signing up for H2O. But if you want a lot of high-speed data, the newest phones, or you just don’t care much about what network you’re on, we suggest checking out other providers.
